Dancing With Monsters (15 page)

“
She said Evie, the
innkeeper at the Ivy Inn, was a demon in disguise, and knew that
Ben had manufactured the serum.” I looked down at Ezra as I twirled
my fingers through her silky hair. “April said the ring, her
engagement ring, contains the secret ingredient for the serum, but
she’s been spell-struck, and anything she tells us may be the truth
or it could be fictitious. Right now, she doesn’t even know what’s
true and what isn’t.”

“
April’s strong,” she said
in a weak voice as she glanced away from me. “The spell is a strong
one, but she’ll quickly overcome that. Her years of suffering had
made her resilient. I could sense that when I entered her dreams.”
Her eyes flashed back to me. “That demon bite should have killed
her, but instead it changed her into something unique,
and…something that could benefit our situation.”

“
Benefit…?” I asked as
Ezra began to cough.

I helped her up as she covered her
face and fought off the violent coughing spell. I didn’t want to
think it, but Ezra was fading in this world. The disease that took
her life before, had come back.

Finally, she calmed and began to take
in deep breaths.

“
I won’t be in this world
for very much longer,” she said looking me steadily in the
eyes.

I grabbed a tissue and wiped the blood
from the corner of her mouth—the only color to her. She was drained
of energy and suffering. It didn’t take any magical ability to see
that Ezra was slipping away.

“
I can’t go back to
the—”

“
You’re not,” I snapped. I
got up and paced the floor running my fingers through my hair. “I’m
a monster with archangel abilities.” I looked at her. “I can make
you better as you once were.”

She shook her head. “It’s only
temporary, and is no life for you,” her withered appearance was a
prelude to what was the evitable. “You can’t be fixing me every two
minutes.”

“
I brought you back from
the Shadowlands, I can save you, Ezra,” her lips curled into a
small smile.

“
I love you, Seth, with
all my heart, but I had died. Archangel or no archangel abilities,
you can’t bring back the dead and expect them to live among the
living.”

I let out a disgruntled
sigh.

“
But,” she said, lying her
head back down. “There is another way, and April Snow can help.”
Her eyes flickered. “She has done a Taking before.”

“
A Taking?” I questioned.
“But how is that going to save you?” I asked knowing some monsters
had the ability to consume the life force of others making them
stronger.

“
April, since she was bit,
has been incomplete. She will never be whole, no matter how much
she tries. The poison from the demon will call her to that side one
day, but with what strength I have left…”

“
No,” I said. “I won’t
allow it to happen. There has to be another way.”

“
There isn’t, not for
us.”

Ezra, I knew, was right. There was no
other way to save her, but I didn’t want to give into that solution
right away. We still had a mission to complete that if not
successful, would not only destroy Iethia, but Earth as well. Not
to mention, I would be letting down Uncle Hes. I had to put my
duties above my desires right now and I hoped that Ezra could
survive until I did.

“
We decided to take
another look around at the Ivy Inn,” Malachi said as I sat beside
Ezra who slept soundly.

“
For what?” I asked trying
to force my concern from Ezra to our mission.

“
What do you think?” He
asked rhetorically in a sarcastic tone. “We want to have tea with
the demon and leave a five star review for her wonderful
hospitality.”

I didn’t respond, just kept my eyes on
Ezra.

Malachi stepped closer to
me and gazed down at Ezra. “She loves you, but I know she wouldn’t
want you to risk our mission to
just
save her. Think of everything
that is at stake here.” He knelt down and met my eyes.
“Everything,” he repeated.

“
What do you think of the
demon that was at the inn?” I asked. “Any residue left that you can
sense?”

Malachi shifted his weight and bit his
bottom lip. “No, but that demon is a sly one. It won’t make it easy
to be found. Besides, that’s another demon for another adventure.”
He turned and stood by the door. “Nessa agreed to stay and watch
Ezra, besides she’s in my opinion, too little of a monster to deal
with big, bad demons.” I let a chuckle escape my lips. Nessa and
Malachi were like brother and sister—protective and annoying at the
same time. “And the demon that destroyed my family is something to
not be reckoned with, at least not with a strong wizard or two at
your back. And wizards detest monsters, so I think we’re out of
luck there.”

To humans, the inn was an abandoned,
half-falling down building that was tolerated by them through a
series of protection spells so it wasn’t knocked down in this
world. It can only exists as it was as long as the structure was
maintained, or at least still standing up, in both realms. The only
bad thing—the spells were fading and the structure had caution tape
around the perimeter along with a license for demolition plastered
across the door. Soon, it would be gone and possibly the only
connection to the demon that nearly killed April.

Ayil, Malachi, April and I walked in
under an invisibility spell, so no humans would be
alerted.

“
Anything?” I whispered to
Malachi.

He looked around the room from the
ceiling to the floor, and then gave me a solemn look with a shake
of his head.

Quietly we walked through the house.
Torn wallpaper, peeling paint and broken windows was in contrast to
the highly polished wood railing that led upstairs—meaning the
spell that the demon maintained was fading rapidly. It was in a
state of change that slowly revealed its condition to
us.

“
I’m not picking anything
up but static from the decomposing protection spell,” Ayil said
holding out her cell phone.

Malachi glanced at her as he leaned
against the railing. “Is that your phone you are using as a
receptor?”

Ayil smiled. “I might be old, but I’m
not technologically impaired. I downloaded an app that can be used
just like one of your fancy-schmancy receptors.” She smirked with a
cock of her head. “And mine isn’t picking anything up.” She shoved
it back in her pocket.

“
Wait,” April, who had
been quietly following said. She closed her eyes and turned around
with her arms bent at the elbows and hands outstretched as if
someone trying to navigate while blinded by darkness. “The
darkness…” The room took a sudden chill as the air around April
formed ice crystals suspended in midair as if they had been
flashed-frozen. “It’s here.” She opened her eyes and looked
directly at me as something invisible knocked her to the
ground.

Malachi was closest to her, and as he
went over to pick her up, he was catapulted across the room and
into a mirror. Glass shattered and spun through the air like darts.
The glass-darts whizzed around me and Ayil as she dodged them to
reach April. Malachi staggered to his feet as one of the glass
shards sliced him on the shoulder.

“
Use the stone! It’s the
only thing that will stop it!” Ayil yelled covering
April.

I pulled the stone from my pocket and
held it high in the air. I didn’t know how to use it, but I didn’t
need to. Just holding it against my bare skin was enough to feel
its power radiate from it through me.

Instantly, the glass shards stopped
and moved harmlessly in mid-air as if suspended by string. They
glistened along with the crystalized air.

“
It’s making a shield
around us, but it’s not going to last.” Ayil pulled April up and
wrapped her arm around her.

“
How are we to fight it
then?” Malachi asked holding his bloodied arm. “It’s a demon, we
are monsters and we’re nothing but play things to it. How are we to
contain it?”

“
It’s attracted to the
stone and will go after it no matter what. Kind of like a bug to a
light.”

“
You mean we are going to
zap a demon with that?” Malachi asked pointing at my stone. “We
should plan things out a little more rather than just going by
the-seats-of-our-pants.”

Just then, the glass shards began to
pick up speed and gather into what looked like a funnel
cloud.

“
I can guide it to the
stone,” April said as she pulled away from the protective arm of
Ayil.

April extended her arms towards the
rotating mass of shards as her hexmark—her royal hexmark, radiated
with light. Ayil, Malachi and I stood behind her as the frozen air
churned and a dark, fluid shadow stood in front of April. I held up
the stone not sure on how to contain a demon inside of
it.

The glass slowed as the shadow slowly
took form of a woman with short, red hair. She was tall and wore a
long, pink sweater over jeans and had on grey, leather boots. She
looked like any human, not a demon that formed from the shadows
with shards of glass surrounding her.

April stood frozen with her arms still
extended.

“
Stay away!” She yelled as
Ayil pulled her back and behind her.

“
Stop demon!” Ayil warned
with her glowing eyes.

The red haired demon stopped, smiled
and then laughed. “Love your eyes, but they don’t scare me, and
neither does your little stone.” She flicked her eyes at me and
then suddenly laughed then stopped with a sour look. “How dare you
come here, but I am glad that you brought my daughter to me.” She
smiled as she crossed her arms and cocked her head to see April.
“Yes, you April Snow, of room 23 at Sunrise Acres, I’m talking to
you.”

April

“
You are not my mother,
demon,” I said, with a sickening feeling in the pit of my
stomach.

“
I’m the one who bit you,”
she smiled at me. “Your mother didn’t deserve you because she
didn’t care about you nor did she want you. Things were that way
without me, darling. If it wasn’t for that stupid gypsy, and your
mother’s knowledge, I’d have you in my brood. It was pure luck that
Benjamin found you.” She paced the floor as she walked through the
hovering glass shards. “The serum… a daughter…what a nice little
present for me,” she said with flickering eyes.

“
Seth, the stone,” I could
hear Ayil whisper as Eveie, the demon, began to sing a familiar
lullaby—rock-a-by-baby—the one my mother used to sing to
me.

“
Your mother sang that to
you, didn’t she?” Eveie asked as she walked around the
room.

“
You. Are. Not. My.
Mother,” I said as flames now burned inside of me. I wanted her
dead for all the years that had been stolen from me.

“
She wanted to protect
you, but at the same time, she didn’t. You had become a burden to
her.”

Her words were like a squirming
tentacle that grew into me like a choking vine. She was the demon,
the darkness that had followed me all my life and she was standing
in front of me.

“
Why?” I asked staring
into her human-like eyes. Was that how she always looked? Human?
“Why me?”

Eveie smiled with delight at my
question as if she had been waiting for me to ask it. “Why not
you?” She asked. “You are special, April. You have things inside of
you that you can’t even begin to comprehend—neither did your
mother, and, your father…died too soon to reveal himself to
you.”

“
April,” Malachi said
behind me, pulling me back. “Don’t listen to the demon; it’s
playing on your emotions.”

Eveie’s eyes shifted to him with
maliciousness. “You know that first-hand, don’t you Malachi.” She
began to laugh. “So, really, is this the group of vigilante
monsters sent to capture me?” Her eyes scanned us.
“Pathetic.”

My body shook with fear and anger. She
knew things of my past, my family…I had to know.

Malachi grabbed my shoulders and
shoved me behind him. He pulled a dagger from his side and flung it
towards Eveie. She caught it with her bare hand and then crushed
it, releasing the black dust from her palm.

Something had to be done. Seth and
Ayil both held the stone in their hands and were chanting
something, but I knew whatever they were doing, it wouldn’t work,
not on this demon.

Eveie stepped towards Malachi and
lifted him by the neck into the air. “I should have killed you
while I had the chance. I thought it would be fun to see what
happened to a little, frightened monster boy as an experiment. And
I can conclude that all you want to do is still kill me—only with
more vengeance—interesting.”

The spell Ayil and Seth were making,
was taking too long. I snatched the stone from them and held it my
arm that had my hexmark, and aimed it at Eveie. Immediately, it
began to glow in a bright light that curled around us like swirling
fog. Gold, orange and white light filled in around us as I stared
at Eveie.